Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul
Klatu, Barata, Nikto
Yub nub, eee chop yub nub Ah toe meet toe peechee keene G’noop dock fling oh ah
Okay, just so we are clear, you are not seeing things and I am not having a medical emergency. I would imagine that no one here had any idea what I was writing (unless you are like me and big fans of the made-up languages of The Lord of the Rings, Return of the Jedi, and The Day The Earth Stood Still).
But I would ask you to imagine for a moment that I continued to write like that for the entire essay. Perhaps I am wrong, but I would imagine that you would tune out. How could you pay attention if you couldn’t understand what I was writing? There would be a separation between us that would occur.
That is what happened at the tower of Babel. When God separated the language of the people there, they could no longer live together and there was division. But as we see in Acts of the Apostles at Pentecost, everyone could hear the Apostles in their language. Why?
We see why in the Gospel of John. Jesus brings to the disciples the Holy Spirit. And He brings something else very important, that we can hear in His first words to them after the Resurrection: Peace.
The Holy Spirit brings us Peace.
Sometimes we think of war as the opposite of peace, and in many ways it is. But above all, the opposite of peace is disharmony. We find this disharmony when we don’t get along with people in our families, our work, and our neighbors. Sometimes this lack of peace comes out in explosive fights over who left the milk on the counter, but often it manifests as low-simmering resentments. Someone does something to get on our nerves or annoys us like taking the last donut in the break room. And we create a story about them in our minds that justifies how we feel. And the resentment grows and we lack peace.
But the Holy Spirit has come to us to give us peace.
A lot of research has been done over relationships that fall apart. From what I have gathered, there are many reasons why this happens, but one of the most common reasons that couples gave was this: “we stopped talking to each other.” Somewhere along the way, they no longer spoke each other’s “language” and division occurred. The Holy Spirit helps us to reach beyond our own “language” and speak to another.
There may be some of us who remember when our Holy Mass was all done in Latin. After Vatican II, we moved to our own native languages. While Latin is beautiful, most of us, I would imagine, do not speak Latin. And just as I spoke unrecognizable words at the beginning of this essay, I would imagine it would be easy for some to tune out of the liturgy. But now that we are speaking the same language, we can be drawn into our Eucharist. We can reflect together on the words and what they mean in our hearts, “This is My Body, which is given up for you!” “This is the chalice of my blood…” “Lamb of God, You take Away the sins of the world… Grant us peace.”
A huge part of having peace is understanding each other’s language. Perhaps many of us see the political divide we have in the world and it seems like there can be no peace, especially if we spend any time on social media. But I wonder how often our political discussion comes down to yelling past each other rather than talking with each other? And our political rift widens.
But the Holy Spirit is not a Spirit of division, but a Spirit of unity! As Paul reminds us in Romans, we are all baptized in One Spirit and we are One Body in Christ. The Holy Spirit moves us to this unity, this peace.
When I was in grade school, I was a gigantic wrestling fan. I had posters of Hulk Hogan, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, Andre the Giant, Randy “Macho Man” Savage, and the rest. My mom would even take me to the Richfield Coliseum to see them wrestle live. And I knew that my mom had zero interest in wrestling. But she went because she knew it was important to me. She was trying to speak my language.
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